Discover · Mastering Playback

Mastering Playback

The playback features of StaffPad are some of the most powerful of any scoring app. In this tutorial, we'll look at how you can use the automation layer, add-on libraries, dynamic compression, and the Edit Staff mixer controls to shape your sound.

Concepts

Samples

StaffPad was designed to be a notation app, first and foremost, and do all the heavy lifting for playback for you behind the scenes. When you write a note or articulation in StaffPad, it'll automatically trigger the correct "sample" for whichever instrument you're writing for. A sample just a short recording of an individual note, articulation or sound.

For every instrument, we record a world-class musician playing every note on their instrument at multiple dynamics levels, with various playing techniques and styles. Hearing exactly the same sample many times in row sounds very unnatural to our ears... so we often record multiple repetition or 'round robin' samples to mitigate this. As you can imagine, this is an expensive, laborious, time-consuming process.

Libraries

This huge database of individual recordings is carefully edited, tagged, and then assembled into a collection known as a library.

An example would be a semibreve middle C, at a forte dynamic, on a flute. This note would actually correspond to a short recording of a real flautist playing a middle C at a forte dynamic for a few seconds.

On their own, samples sound pretty boring; but if you get enough of them and put them in the right order, it starts to sound like music.

StaffPad includes the StaffPad Core Library, but there are many more options to suit your style and taste available in the StaffPad Store

Automation

There are three automation "layers" in StaffPad: expression, volume and pan. These layers let you continuously control how StaffPad's playback engine interprets the dynamics, and the level and balance of how it plays those samples back.

Expression controls the true playing dynamics of the instrument. Most instruments within StaffPad are sampled many times, with various dynamic intensities. We can fade or move between these different dynamics recordings seamlessly - this is how the effect of a crescendo or diminuendo is achieved.

Each written dynamic (i.e pp, mf, ff) automatically triggers a corresponding dynamic layer. However, sometimes, you want to write one dynamic marking but hear another. In this case, you can enter the automation view, and manually edit the expression layer. Modified dynamics will turn orange, to indicate they differ from their default value.

Most of the time, you won't need to automate the volume or pan, since the playback libraries in StaffPad are recorded and kept at their natural recorded volumes. However, sometimes you may wish to boost a very quiet sound, or tame a very loud one - this is where the volume automation layer can come in handy.

Be careful with adjusting the automation layers - it can be easy to overdo it and get too into complex curves. You can always reset the graph to it's original/default values by long-touching the staff and choosing "Reset Current Automation". If you do this on the score background, it will reset the automation graph for the entire score.

Dynamic Compression

Compression is a studio term that describes the effect of reducing the overall dynamic range of a recording. You can think of compression as an automatic volume control; when things get loud, the compressor will keep the levels suppressed. When they are quiet, it will boost the level so that it can be heard.

The general idea is that the more compression you apply, the more "stable" the overall dynamic range of the music is. When you have a piece that features a very wide dynamic range -- very quiet sections followed by very loud sections -- it can be tricky to find an overall level that is comfortable to listen to. This is where dynamic compression can help.

In StaffPad, we've added a smart compressor that will automatically smooth out any peaks and troughs in your piece for a smoother listening experience.

However, be careful with this control - it can be easily overdone. If your music sounds like it is "pumping" - a rapid oscillation in volume - or you hear a lot of noise in quiet sections, then you may have the compressor set too high.

Used in conduction with the Master Volume control, you can usually find a good balance which works for most pieces of music. As a general rule, setting the Master Volume to 85% and the compression to 15% works well for a modern sound.

StaffPad's playback engine is unrivalled in the industry when it comes to power and ease of use. We've reduced all of the complexity to a couple of very simple steps, allowing you more time to focus on what the notes are... rather than how they are interpreted by a machine.